Chapter 1 - Bernadette & Melina
- avrielarin
- Oct 23, 2020
- 8 min read
"i straight up shit my pants when i saw you"
The sound of a notification pierced her eardrum in the dead of night as Bernadette slammed her palm down onto the device on the nightstand. Squinting, she neared the device to her field of vision in the dark, first noticing the time displayed:
03:20 AM, 8 August 2012
Not even the most hardworking man ought to be up and going at this hour. The sender an unknown number, the style of the message not suiting any of her acquaintances, the few she had left. The ravenette turned the phone off, pressing it to her forehead, her pale face strained in a mix of annoyance and sleepiness. Ready to ignore the sender, she outstretched her hand to return the phone to it’s place on the nightstand.
The phone buzzed once more, the tone coming out louder than the low snores of a man that laid beside her. Albeit facing away, she could feel the heat of his body against her bare back. She scrambled and turned the device on, this time lowering the volume all the way. Not so much because of the man sleeping beside her as much as for sparing herself the heart attack every time a new message lit the device up from now on.
“Cmon bernie mane :/”
The use of the nickname irked Bernadette, her eyebrows knitted as she sent a text back this time.
“?”
She waited for the reply, invested in identifying the pesterer before she could sleep again. The burn of the phone screen chased out the exhaustion in her brain.
“Don’t be playing me Bernard cmon rmemebr ya gorl meli”
“My name’s not Bernard, you’ve got the wrong person”
Bernadette scratched the back of her head before running a hand through her hair and scratching her eyebrows. Her wakefulness had brought down hypersensitivity to the itch of the bangs of her bowl cut. The temptation to just shave her head after she ends things is even stronger in the dead of night.
Upon a vibration, she turns the phone on again to find three new messages.
“Ugh okkk bernadette, not my problem you lookd like a man when me n the crew approachd”
“maybe a poicture will jog ur memory ; ) “
A man? Looking like a man? In all honesty, Bernadette should leave the conversation as of now. The person on the other end is clearly intoxicated, mistyped the number or their “Bernard” turned them away. But, the man argument seemed familiar, piqued her enough to continue.
The picture showed a group of 4 people, hands on each other’s shoulders or backs. On the left, the first person was a tall dark-skinned man. His dreads cascaded from his shoulder to his chest; neon yellow tank top hanging from his frame, tucked into his jeans. She couldn't see his face over the blur of the camera, the faintest beginnings of a stubble making his face darker.
Beside him was a shorter Asian female, who clasped her arm around his back, him towering a full two heads above her. Her drunken heavy-lidded eyes shined red in the photo due to the lack of light. Bernadette could make out the braided ponytails on each shoulder, below them the text of her bright pink t-shirt “fish bone” accompanied by a simple drawing of what the text entailed. Judging as she battled the bad lighting on scene, Bernadette guessed she wore a long pair of tattered jeans. ‘In this weather?’ her head mused.
So far, nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. That is until she glanced over at the third person.
Speak of the man-looking devil. There, middle of the photograph grinned Bernadette’s sister. Twin sister at that, albeit only their faces showed any resemblance. Her sister, Anette, was of a muscular build, her chest flat and the buzzcut only added to the notion that this were a man. She never regarded herself as one, though, but played along to the fantasy of people around her.
Anette winked at the camera, and Bernadette took this as a jab. Anette did this on purpose, always mischievous and it amplified the longer the two lived away. Ever since she remembered, Anette teased her with no end, set up blind dates and any other rebellious deeds fellow siblings got up to. But that was the past, the 18 years the two lived under the same roof. For the past year, marriage had the ravenette occupied in her little one-bedroom apartment. She worked over the internet on a cheap laptop which she propped on the cheap plastic table each morning. In varying hours each morning, she watched the salmon color of the sky shift as the sun came out over buildings. When the sun showed its full glory, Bernadette would kiss her husband goodbye and continue her work until sundown, await her husband’s arrival late at night and go to sleep.
She used to be the type of girl Anette still is, albeit marriage constricted her in its barbed wire chokehold. In a chokehold with a man who only needed someone to clean his house and symbiotically coexist in the same living space.
A buzz shook Bernadette out of reminiscing, her pesterer persisted.
“Oi you gonan tell me something or : (???"
“Cmon don’t leave a gal hanging bruv, you sai d wed arrange a meeting yag”
Bernadette focused all her willpower on not sighing in expiration. The notifications may not wake him but at this point he’s too unpredictable in what will rouse him or not. She tapped out a response
“Not me in this photo. Sorry. It’s my sister”
Less than a second passed.
“bs”
“square up prove it tmr morning baby”
Bernadette dragged a hand down her face.
“I have work early morning. Sorry but my sister fooled you.”
Multiple messages followed like rapid fire.
“yadda yadda ya seem so stuck up alluva sudden n we were just having a good time”
“miss one day out the job! Mytreat ; ) ill pay the days salary. Call in sik or smn f”
“??? Cat cafe Purrlor in 9 hours===??? 12?? I be the judge of whos ur sister n whos not”
Bernadette’s face turned sour, but she typed in the name of the café into internet search. In the outskirts of Lower east side, not too long of a walk judging she lived in center Chinatown.
She rolled her eyes as she typed back.
“Okay. Hoping when you sober up you realize what the hell you’re even doing”
The reply made her sound a repressed snort for the first time since they started talking.
“bruh”
Checking the time once more, Bernadette slid the phone back onto the nightstand and closed her eyes. It may be alright to get out of the stuffy space sometimes, likely what Anette aimed for all along.
The morning followed the routine, it seems the late-night texts did not rouse her husband and none of them spoke of anything that conspired that night. Bernadette continued writing at her balcony up to half an hour until she ought to meet her pesterer. To her surprise, the pesterer did not text her all morning after their exchange and she faltered between relief and anxiety of the other standing her up.
Pulling on a veil-tin wine-red blouse over new dark jeans, she ran her fingers to even out her hair. She left her laptop to charge and took the phone with her. Slipping the device into a white handbag along with the keys, she descended the complex.
Navigating the stuffy streets challenged Bernadette’s brain, not too used to getting out of her complex at all. The heat itself bore a challenge to coordinate while on the verge of a heatstroke.
Fortunately, she still had a few minutes spare when she ended up in front of the appointed café fifteen minutes later. Walking into the place she gazed at the photo received yesterday. Eyes scanning the area, Bernadette met a wave of disappointment unable to find the familiar face. She focused harder, the staple cats the café took care of rubbing against her jeans as she stood at the door.
The familiar braided ginger pigtails stood out in her eye the second time around. Her legs carried her over to the empty table, upon closer inspection Bernadette noticed the roots growing in black.
The other girl, “Meli”, sat at the table a cat in her lap, she appeared to be taking grainy pictures on an ancient-looking touch-screen phone whilst the animal dozed off. She looked even tinier than in the pictures Bernadette saw (or she herself was just a giant). In comparison to the outfit from yesterday, she seemed to have dressed into a dark short-sleeved hoodie and washed black jeans with a few shallow rips. Beside her chair laid a deflated-looking duffel bag drooping away from her.
Once standing beside the table, she knocked on the wood to alert her. The cat jumped off and she could hear the soft whine as the girl switched her attention to Bernadette.
Disappointment. She had come all this way to be disappointed because Anette always wanted to set others up more than herself.
The girl studied Bernadette from head to toe before speaking:
“Well, ya gonna sit ‘ere or not?”
Bernadette opened her mouth, only to close it and sit at the other end of the table, “So, you are not disappointed? You were surely expecting my sister.”
The ginger frowned for a moment before her lips curled upward and she laid her phone onto the table, “Honestly, I’on even ‘member the guy I was finna meet so this is a fittin’ compromise.”
She let out a dry laugh, Bernadette could feel the awkwardness but did not talk about it, “I’s Melina, Li Ning-Hua[1] if ya wanna be courteous but don’ even try.”
Extending her hand over the table, Bernadette shook it as she spoke, “Bernadette Marzell. You met my sister Anette.”
Pulling her hand back, Bernadette could see Melina’s eyes roll in annoyance.
“Sister, eh? Enough talk ‘bout her, she fucked up. Ya used to do nature photography? Modelling or somethin’?”
Bernadette flushed a little, not the best at small talk after having cooped up for so long. Most certainly not small talk about her previous small jobs.
“Model in the past, as is photographer. I tend to get out once a month and take some pictures, but they don’t really… Work for me so much anymore,” the taller looked to the side, trying to shift focus to the cats rubbing around table legs. Melina looked at her as she talked with dazed eyes.
Is she still drunk?
“Damn, shame,” she put her head on her palm, “I be doin’ lotta handyman stuff, if ya need me for anythin’ from fixing a pipe ta’ cleaning up after ya shanked ya hubby or somethin’, hit me up.”
The last part she said in a hushed tone, leaning a bit too close to comfort and sliding a navy-blue business card across the table. Bernadette let out a forced snort, not the best joke.
‘Anette, what friends are you making?’ she scolded the sibling in her head.
The rest of the conversation flowed like the mass of people outside; Melina said strange things to which Bernadette replied with forced amusement albeit the other seemed serious. She had not checked her phone and when it came time to end their meeting, she learned that two and a half hours had already passed. Bernadette found the girl not to talk a lot about herself as much as she talked about Bernadette but dismissed it.
Melina stood up first, scratching a cat that had climbed up onto the table between its ears as she talked, “T’was a fun one, could meet up more if ya was willin’ to,” her lips wore a smirk and Bernadette could catch her winking for a split second. Something warm heated in the ravenette’s stomach and cheeks, she hoped that they didn’t glow so red.
“I hang ‘round Chinatown ‘n this cafe pretty often wit’ fellas these days, so ya don' gotta be scheduling wit' me. Just come see me some time,” she waved her head nearing the exit, her near-shouting alerting people sitting in vicinity.
Bernadette nodded, knowing she would still send a message if she planned to meet anytime soon anyway, “Okay, I’ll keep it in mind.”
Bernadette watched her exit, sitting there for a little while to take in the lax atmosphere contrasting the usual stuffy air of her own home. Later she herself stood up and after paying for the drinks exited the café into the busy street.
She scolded again, ‘God, Anette. What have you gotten me into?’
[1] Li Ning-Hua: 李 寧花
Chapter 1 is officially released! The series has been in works since June this year, and this chapter was originally a one-shot i wrote off a friend's prompt (first line in the chapter, lmao). I hope you will enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing during these months.
Huge thank-you's to the artists illustrating the main characters :) !!
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